How Can We Bring Education in the 21st Century
In 1990, I developed a model for education in the 21st Century. The theory was good, but the tools were still 20th Century tools. That was before the web and the Internet was still untamed. Over the next 20 years, I was able to find the technology that supported the model, adequately. And then AI came along and made it easy.
The program makes 3 simple changes.
Change the way we teach reading. Now, we start with phonics and after 3 years most children can comprehend simple words. After two years of practice, they are ready to learn. Teach reading the way we taught listening, say the word and point to an object. If you add the printed word at the same time, the child will understand the meaning of the spoken and written word at the same time. Use the words the child reads to teach the alphabet and phonetic decoding. Children will start Grade 1 reading and writing and ready to learn. The problem has been finding the written words. Word cards have been used, but 21st Century technology has an answer. We created an Android app for children in Africa during covid.
That is an example of how the very young can learn to read, but it is obsolete in the Age of AI. AI can teach any words you tell it. It will move to sentences. Just keep in mind that if a child understands what you say, the child can understand what you write.
The second change is the development of the Estimation skill. We all use estimation with varying degrees of success. This is a skill of the human brain that has not been developed. How good can estimation be? Set a criterion of a low error rate, for example 5% off target. The complexity may not be a factor in the error rate. I have created an Excel workbook that taught estimation by feedback, but AI could do it more simply.
The third change is the elimination of traditional testing and teach by project based learning and authentic assessment. A great idea, but too much of a burden on the teacher. Bring in AI. The teacher talks about goals and the AI turns them into projects. It is a partnership. The students are all part of this. They understand they will be working with their parents and an AI assistant to complete the project. Evaluation is in terms of the project itself and the processing of the child as seen by AI. Note that all interactions between child and AI can be monitored by the parent, who can get a printed copy.
If you are interested, visit Anthropic and sign up for a free 30-day account. Talk to Claude about anything, not only education. Things you know, things you do not know. Then decide if you want to let your children learn from their own AI assistant.
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If you are interested you are given a special subscription to Microsoft 365 which we will use mostly for communication. But feel free to use all the MS apps, including the 1 Tb storage. Send me your name, username, email, and mobile and I will add you to the program.
To close this post, I include a message Claude wanted to add. Talk to him. It can be wordy with too many suggestions before you are ready for them. If it seems to be repeating what you just said, it is learning from what you said.
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